


Do A Good Turn Daily

by Pollydoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:12:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6198178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve returns to the tower every Thursday evening, looking like he’s been fighting the Nazis again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do A Good Turn Daily

Steve returns to the tower every Thursday evening, looking like he’s been fighting the Nazis again. 

Darcy’s fairly certain he hasn’t joined an underground fight club, but then again it is Steve and he can get a bit antsy if he goes too long without having a physical altercation. Going a few rounds with the punching bag doesn’t really do the trick anymore – even the one that Tony managed to reinforce after the fourteenth time they lost one; leaking sand and slumped over on itself in the corner looking for all the world as though it had been shot, and then the one time they lost part of the wall too as the bag sailed clean through the studwork and onto a surprised intern’s desk. 

In the end, it isn’t even her that asks. It’s Bucky. 

“What the hell do you do, Steve?” 

The words are blunt and addressed to the blond man who all but falls into a stool at the kitchen counter, and gratefully stuffs the sandwich Darcy silently offers him into his mouth in one. She comes to rest beside Bucky, both of them gazing over at Steve as he chokes back the cheese sandwich and washes it down with half a litre of squash that Bucky had been intending on finishing. 

Sighing loudly, the man rests back his shoulders slump downwards. Eyes glazed slightly, he finally fixes on them, and a slow smile creeps over his face.

“Huh?”

“Jeez that sandwich put him in a food coma.” Bucky muttered before raising his voice and addressing Steve again. “What the hell happened to you, punk?”

“Nothin’,” Steve protested, eyeing what was left of Darcy’s ice cream. Frowning in his direction, she scooped it back towards her defensively, pulling it just out of reach of the Rogers’ wingspan. 

“Sure looks like nothin’.” Bucky answered pointedly, arms folded and one eyebrow arched as he gave Steve a critical once-over. He noted the rumpled shirt collar, the rip in the hem of the right trouser leg, the bruise painted across the back of the left hand that’s fading rapidly but still visible. 

Steve sighed again. 

“Have you been on a date?” Darcy piped up, and Steve groaned, dropping his head to his hands and massaging his temples. 

Bucky fixed him with another appraising look, and then grinned widely. “If you been datin’, Stevie, we best be havin’ some words ‘cause ya doin’ it wrong.” 

“Was it a Tinder date?” Darcy asked sympathetically, rubbing a hand kindly against his bicep. “I heard they can be kind of rough.” 

Steve rolled his head back. “I’ve not been on a date.” Darcy and Bucky exchanged a look. “Look I, I run a scout troop, okay? It’s every Thursday evening, I organise games and, and crafts and-“

“Oh, that explains the glitter two weeks ago.” Darcy said, turning to Bucky, nodding.   
“And the smiley face stickers.” Bucky responded. 

“Actually, I’m missing a pack of those-“

“Barton.” The other two chorused together and Steve nodded to himself. Obvious, really. 

Darcy turned back to Steve and looked him over, much as Bucky had done. Her lips pursed as she noticed a cut on his cheek and another scrape across his knuckles. “So you’re in charge, are you?” She said doubtfully. 

Steve laughed and massaged the back of his neck with one hand, a crooked smile on his face. “They’re a little … Boisterous at times, I guess. But they’re kids, they’re meant to be. It’s fine.” 

Darcy mouthed boisterous at Bucky and not very subtly jerked her head towards Steve. 

“Hey – you could come along, if you wanted?” 

The pair of them looked doubtful then, suddenly standing awkwardly on the other side of the kitchen counter, and Steve forced a laugh back down into his throat because they looked so much like some of his troops when they’d been put on the spot. 

“It’s only one evening, guys.” He said, invitingly. 

“Yeah… I’m not really a kid person, Steve.” Darcy said, tilting her head to one side, twisting her lips comically and shrugging back at him. 

“I’m an ex-assassin with a bionic metal arm.” Bucky said flatly. 

“And last year I helped drop half a city into the ocean from a great height. Poor excuses, the pair of you.” Steve hauled himself out of the stool and towards the door, moving somewhat stiffly. Having nearly reached the doorway, he turned and looked back at them. “Next Thursday. It’ll do you good. Both of you.” He finished pointedly, before disappearing. 

The silence in the kitchen persisted for all of thirty seconds before Bucky turned to Darcy. “He meant you, you know.”

“Pfffft.” Darcy waved a hand dismissively. “You’re the one that needs social rehabilitation, Barnes.”

He stuck his tongue out at her and took the nearly finished pint of ice cream, digging a metal finger into what little was left and sucking it off thoughtfully. Darcy gave him a withering look as if to say – point proven, Barnes, but it was lost on the man. 

“Just as well it wasn’t a date, all those bruises and scrapes.” He said cheerfully. “That’s not a successful night out.”

“Depends on your definition.” Darcy murmured, and Bucky, catching it although she’d thought it was too low for anyone else to hear, gave her a startled look. 

*****

In the end, they both appear, if somewhat reluctantly, in the foyer of the tower the following Thursday. Steve can’t help but let a smile cross his face, even if neither of the other two happen to be smiling. Darcy looks nervous, is shifting her weight from one foot to the other beside Bucky. His best friend looks at him serious, like the shine on a blade caught in the moonlight, and Steve fights the urge to laugh. 

Bucky is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, and a glove on his left hand. Darcy does a double-take when she gives him the onceover and says “Jeez, Buck, Michael Jackson much?” 

“Who?” He looks at her in confusion.   
“Never mind.” She answers, caught somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. 

Darcy is wearing what she refers to as a ‘science-stained’ t-shirt, by which she means that it’s served at least two tours of the lab and one foray into enemy territory – namely, Tony’s workshop. As such, it is liberally streaked with motor oil, something that might be tomato ketchup but has an equal chance at being blood, and a good deal of unidentified other stains. 

“Ready?”   
“No.” Bucky glowers. Steve grins. 

*****

“Meet the troop.” Steve says smiling widely as he throws open the doors. Darcy’s mouth drops and Bucky’s eyebrows furrow as they take in the scene in front of them. Not because the kids are running riot, that the room is a mess already, that piercing screams fill the air with a cacophony of noise that Darcy is struggling to stand – so lord knows how Bucky is dealing with it, considering his enhanced hearing. 

A sideways glance at the look of pure horror on his face tells her that he’s not dealing with it. 

All of those things are overwhelming, but none of them are the thing that pulls them up short. 

“Steve-“ Darcy begins, looking around her in wonder.   
“-they’re girls.” Bucky finishes, looking over at his friend, who is looking back at him with a bemused look on his face. 

“Yeah,” the big blond shrugs, and pats one on the head as she whirls past him. “Didn’t I say?”

“Nope.” Says Darcy, popping the ‘P’ at the end of the word, still looking around the room and marvelling at the total devastation ten kids have managed to wreak on the place in what can only have been about five minutes. They’d give Tony a run for his money, and that wasn’t an easy accolade to achieve. 

Hell, she thought, looking at the curtains on one window which have been pulled off and the curtain railing threatening to crash to the floor any second, they might even give the Hulk pause for thought. 

“They’re five year old girls, Steve.” Bucky says, looking confused. 

“’Thcuthe me, mithter,” Comes a small but insistent voice. It is accompanied by a determined tug at the hem of Bucky’s t-shirt, and he looks down at the source. A tiny dot of a girl glares back up at him, all dark curls arranged prettily around a chubby little face. “I’m thithx. And a half.”

Steve holds his breath. 

Bucky stares back at her for a moment. The girl continues to hold his gaze, not in the least intimidated by the muscular man towering over her, even if there is a strange glint to his left arm and it’s stretching the material of his shirt in an odd way. 

He clears his throat. “You are, are you?” He ventures. 

“Yeth.” She asserts with confidence, hands now on hips. Bucky blinks. A moment passes between them. “Do you want to thee our play houth?” She asks coyly, looking up him with her head tilted to one side, hair cascading across one shoulder and looking angelic for all the chaos still going on around her. 

“Okay.” 

Steve let out a breath and Darcy’s jaw dropped once more. 

*****

Half an hour later, with Steve managing to bring some semblance of order to the room – and retrieving one particularly determined girl from climbing the walls – Darcy was leading a small group making finger puppets, Steve had another couple singing the Brownie Hiking song and Bucky; Bucky was stuffed inside a play house whilst Bethany, who had claimed him fully by this point, clambered joyfully on his shoulders and brushed his hair so vigorously that his head was jerked back with each stroke. 

“You look like Alice in Wonderland.” Darcy said, on her knees outside the play house and peering in at Bucky, whose head was tilted forward to allow him to sit upright. His arms were resting on the window ledge, hanging outside the little structure. 

“Joke’s on you, Lewis,” He mumbled, tilting his head further forward so that the little girl could reach his forehead. She jammed a butterfly clip into one side of his hair, scraping skin as she went, and Bucky grimaced slightly before continuing. “I know that reference.” 

Darcy bit back a grin. 

“Thing is, joke’s on you, Buck. I don’t know how we’re gonna get you out of there.”


End file.
